


A Conversation

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 16:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16916211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: In which Anakin dreams, and Elrond thinks he's giving good advice.





	A Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> It seems I'm incapable of escaping Star Wars-Tolkien crossover fic.

Anakin was dreaming.

He was dreaming, and he knew it because when he looked down his hand was there. It was the real thing, too, not the robotic imitation that the medbay droids had painstakingly constructed and grafted to the stump of his forearm. _Strange_ , he thought, _but not unwelcome_. Any more his dreams were a mess of emotion and confusion, images and feelings; this was a respite he felt he much deserved.

 _Where am I?_ he thought, and he glanced at his surroundings. The Force was strong here, that much was obvious. In fact, Anakin could practically see it without having to close his eyes and focus. He’d never been in a place so alive before, so full of energy that he didn’t even have to meditate to feel himself recharging. He was standing on a terrace overlooking a green forest that rose up some distance away over sharp crags of rock, and beside him was an elegant table crafted of wood with two matching chairs. There were birds singing, and the sound of running water somewhere far away. It reminded him of Naboo, almost, but it was colder there. Though the architecture was reminiscent of the lake country he’d honeymooned in years ago.

Years. Had it really been so long? And now… now everything was about to change unless he could do something about it…

“Excuse me.”

The voice was low, and it startled him, but once he’d recovered from the little flinch he inhaled and drew on the Force. There was a man behind him, it said, but it neglected to inform him beyond that point. He got vague senses of power - though decidedly not Force-based - and of kindness, and wisdom, and age, staggering age, older than Master Yoda even.

The black-clad Jedi knight turned around to see who exactly had spoken.

A figure stood in an archway leading back to stone halls. He was tall, taller than Anakin certainly, and he had long hair reminiscent of Qui-Gon; it was far darker than his old mentor’s almost-blond, though, and had a slight wave to it if you looked. He wore navy-colored robes, a silver circlet on his head, and for a moment the Jedi thought he glimpsed something like a star between two of the fingers of the other man’s right hand.

“I should like to know,” he said after a long period of staring at Anakin without blinking, “what you are doing in my dream.”

“Your dream?” the knight asked, laughing a little, one hand moving to run through the hair on the back of his head as it always did when he was a little ill-at-ease. “This is my dream, mister…?”

The man didn’t answer, he merely crossed the distance between them. He was very tall up close, and as he stood he looked Anakin over again.

“Your dream.” he murmured, and shook his head. “So tell me, _adan_ , who are you?”

_Adan? Never heard that word before. Maybe it means ‘human’?_

“Anakin Skywalker.” the Jedi answered a little awkwardly. “I’m a Jedi Knight.” Why that seemed important he wasn’t sure, honestly - this was a dream, and dreams didn’t reflect reality always, after all - but he wanted to say it anyway. Because that’s what he was, what defined him. _A Jedi to the end_. “Could - could you tell me where we are?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the forest before looking back at the other man. “This place is… it’s something.” Beautiful, and thriving, and full of the Force, and alive as though time did not exist. But he couldn’t find a word for it.

“My home.” the other man said simply. Anakin watched him. Not human, not according to what he’d felt, and were he as old as the Force had hinted, he’d be ancient indeed. No, not human, but close.

“So tell me,” the man continued, his voice deep and his eyes alight, “what brings you here?”

The black-clad knight frowned.“What do you mean? This is my dream, I told you. You,” he said, waving his hand in the man’s direction, “and - and all this? It’s my imagination.”

The man sat in one of the chairs and poured himself a glass of dark wine. He raised an eyebrow as if to say _Oh? You know nothing, boy._  but was silent. Anakin had seen such eyebrow-raises before, notably on Obi-Wan when he’d insisted as a boy that he did in fact know how to drive a speeder (this was, of course, immediately before crashing said speeder); he began to suspect he was missing something. His face fell and he sat opposite the man.

“So if you’re not in my dream,” he said at last, “what’s going on?”

The man shrugged and took a brief sip of wine. “Perhaps you’ve come to me for counsel? Many do. I’m considered wise.” The look on his face made Anakin think he didn’t quite agree with that opinion, but the Jedi didn’t press.

“I have to admit,” he said, “this is the best dream I’ve had in a while. Most of them are… not good.”

“Oh?” the other man asked. “How, if I may ask?”

“Why do you care?” Anakin replied, feeling the familiar walls come back up. “It’s none of your business, even if you are just inside my head.” He rolled his eyes, turning away from his companion and muttering under his breath. “And she doesn’t believe me, anyway. She thinks I’m crazy.”

“She?”

“Damnit.” the knight said. “Of course. My dream, you’re gonna hear what I say.”

“As I’ve said before,” the man responded, “this is not your dream. But I will hear what you have to say, if you wish.”

He was going to respond with anger - _Why does it matter? Back off! Leave me alone! You wouldn’t understand._ \- but then it hit him. This was a dream. His secrets (and there were many of them) were safe.

Well. Someone he could actually talk to. A little self-aware for a subconscious invention, but far better than what it could have been, as memories of last night’s nightmares reminded him.

“My wife.” he said, as if acquiescing to the other man. “She doesn’t trust me.”

“Trust is the basis of a good marriage.” his companion answered. “Without it there is nothing.”

“Try telling her that.” Anakin said. “She’s insistent I’m delusional. 'This is Coruscant, Ani! I have the best medical droids, Ani! I’m not in any danger, Ani!’” He punctuated each statement with a wave of his (still real) hand and glowered at the terrace railing. “She is in danger. I can sense it.”

There was a moment of silence. He glanced over to see the other man deep in thought, staring at his hand as if contemplating that bizarre flash of light that kept dancing over its third finger.

“I can sense it,” he pressed on, “and she won’t believe me, and she won’t take precautions, and now it’s on me, just like _everything else_.” The last two words were torn from gritted teeth, and he hated it, hated being reminded of his duties. Sometimes it was all Obi-Wan had talked about when he was first initiated. “And it is.” he continued. “Everything is my responsibility, because of that damned prophecy.”

“You have a great Doom upon you, then.” the other man said. “And dreams that foretell it.”

“But - but they can’t foretell it.” he insisted. “They can’t, I’ll do anything to stop it.” At the back of his head, he wondered why he bothered telling this man anything at all really, but again came the reassurance that it was all a dream.

“We… we’re going to have a baby.” he said, sinking back to face the man. “We’re going to have a baby, and I’m going to have to leave the Order because Jedi cannot wed, but I can do that, I can make it doing whatever needs to be done, if only she’s all right, but she won’t be all right, she’s going to die, I can _feel_ it, and she won’t _listen!_ ” His fist slammed into the table before he could stop it, but he forced himself to remain still after that. _No more anger. I am in control_.

His companion looked at him, face inscrutable. Anakin blinked, and for a moment felt a great surge of power in the Force, as if he was before an indescribable being rather than a simple nearly-human man, but the feeling was gone as soon as it came, and when he opened his eyes again there was the man before him, staring out past the terrace at the forest.

“My wife told me something the night of our wedding.” he said slowly, still scrutinizing the trees. “It was the only thing she made me promise her.”

“Oh?” the knight asked, only a little curious. _My subconscious confidant has a wife?_

“She made me swear,” the man continued, “that whatever darkness might come, I would not destroy myself to save her. That I would not burn so she might bloom. And I did as she asked, and I promised her.”

“It sounds like something Padmé would say.” Anakin admitted with a sigh of defeat. The other man turned to look at him.

“But,” he said, and his eyes blazed with light and strength, “were anything to happen to her? I would break that promise, without a second thought.”

Anakin opened his mouth to respond -

\- and woke up.


End file.
